As with their private jet–aided appeals to lower emissions, the 1 percent’s virtue signaling about social distancing during this outbreak obscures the fact that they’ve helped make the crisis worse. Even starved of their chefs and personal shoppers, the rich might be able to weather Covid-19 in their summer homes. Their worldview, on the other hand, may not be so lucky—and could face an angrier, more organized public on the other side.
March 30th, 2020 at 10:01AM
We joke about a cheddar curtain extending westward from Lake Michigan, and yet, the possibility of Wisconsin officials attempting to keep Chicago’s contagion out of Door County the same way Rhode Island officials would rather contain New York’s virus on the Hamptons rather than Block Island or Newport still exists.
Now consider that county in Idaho that has become a hot spot that might have been infected by glitterati flying into Sun Valley. Makes for some future social science research: will the militancy be of the form familiar to New Republic regulars, or will it take a Trumpian populist form?